Agenda, Dev Chat, Wednesday July 3, 2024

The next WordPress Developers Chat will take place on  Wednesday July 3, 2024 at 20:00 UTC in the core channel on Make WordPress Slack.

The live meeting will focus on the discussion for upcoming releases, and have an open floor section.

Additional items will be referred to in the various curated agenda sections, as below. If you have ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. requests for help, please do continue to post details in the comments section at the end of this agenda.

Announcements

WordPress 6.6 RC2 was released on July 2. We are in a hard string freeze. Note that the dev-feedback and dev-reviewed workflow is required prior to committing to the 6.6 branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch". (handbook reference).

Forthcoming releases

Next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope.: 6.6

We are currently in the WordPress 6.6 release cycle. The WordPress 6.6 RC3 is scheduled for Tuesday, July 9.

Next maintenance release

No maintenance releases are currently being planned. We will take time to discuss any important tickets that may require a maintenance release.

Next GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ release: 18.7

Gutenberg 18.7 is scheduled for July 3 and will include these issues. This version will NOT be included in the WordPress 6.6 release and will be included with 6.7.

Discussions

As we’re in the middle of the 6.6 release cycle, we’ll prioritize any items for this release. Please review the Editor Updates section of this agenda for a list of updates on several key features related to this release.

Highlighted Posts

• Updates to the Interactivity API in 6.6
• Editing custom fields from connected blocks
• Recap Hallway Hangout: Exploring Grid Layouts
• Hallway Hangout: Section styles and other block style variation updates

Editor updates

You can keep up to date with the major Editor features that are currently in progress for 6.6 by viewing these Iteration issues.

Props to @annezazu for putting together these updates each week.

• BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. bindings APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.: open question started around Should the bindings logic be moved to core functions instead of using a hook? and recent request for new designs for the ability to add/remove bindings in attributes panel.
• Block previews: as part of a larger effort to improve block previews for site building blocks various previews have been recently updated with more to come: Login/out block,  Post title,  Post content block, & Excerpt block.
• Design updates: check out Design Share 59 (Jun 17-Jun 28) for the latest.
• Grid layout: continuing with the plans for 6.7, work has started for using manualPlacement attribute to set manual grid mode and allow responsive behaviour in both modes.
• Interactivity API: early exploration to add lightbox support to the Gallery block and adding instant search to Query & Search blocks, along with some plans for more developer documentation in Create a Core Concepts section for the iAPI & Create and “Interactivity API” section under “How to Guides” section to help with adoption.
• Mobile web issues: various mobile web issues like this have cropped up related to the Site Editor with some quick fixes underway for 6.6 and a broader vision for the future. Please keep reporting these issues!
• More 6.7 iteration issues: Block Bindings iteration for WordPress 6.7 & Stabilize Typography Block Supports Keys for WP 6.7. As a reminder, these iteration issues are part of a larger effort to offer more clarity with roadmap items.
• Section styles: join the discussion around standardizing slugs for section styles. This is a great place for block themers in particular to get involved.
• Twenty Twenty-Five is open for business with a fresh GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repo: https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfive
• Typography tools: Adding Font size presets UI to handle creation, update and removal of font size presets.

Tickets for assistance

Tickets for 6.6 will be prioritized.

Please include details of tickets / PRs and the links in the comments, and if you intend to be available during the meeting if there are any questions or you will be async.

Follow-ups from last week

There were a couple of points raised in last week’s dev chat that would be good to check in with:

• Can we extend the hard string freeze date to RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 3 for major releases?
• Do we have further information on who can help progress a PR in the WordPress Importer repo?

Open floor

Items for this can be shared in the comments.

Props to @joemcgill for reviewing.

#6-6, #agenda, #dev-chat